GameAdmin wrote:

BUT, and here is the problem. That means I can pretty much always hit the fighter, and so kill it.

The impression Mappie left for me is that "always hit the fighter" is still not a forgone conclusion. Without drone speed exceeding target speed you can never hit the target though, and requiring so many drone pts to get sufficient movement makes that hard.

Maybe each mass spent on a drones move multiplier also reduces the drones power by one.

So a power 4 attack drone, move 4 (ie +2) per pt is reduced to a power 2.

eg 3 pts of movement, 4 move per pt = move 12, but power reduced.

It can be generalised for all drones as well.

That works for me.

Small on small fights are fun and very different to small vs large.

It pretty much boils down to concealment because as mentioned we can move faster than the drones we fire. However, unlike large ships, we can maneouvre very easily (and silently) to generate the required crossfire to hit/kill the enemy. But, this works both ways.

As such the speed of the drone doesn't matter, you just have to out-guess the opponents next move, and have some sort of plan of escape after you fire your drones. I'm a bit of a fan of multiple ships using the 'drone/scrambler' combination for this to get me back into silent running.

Mapmaker wrote:

Small on small fights are fun and very different to small vs large. It pretty much boils down to concealment because as mentioned we can move faster than the drones we fire. However, unlike large ships, we can maneouvre very easily (and silently) to generate the required crossfire to hit/kill the enemy. But, this works both ways. As such the speed of the drone doesn't matter, you just have to out-guess the opponents next move, and have some sort of plan of escape after you fire your drones. I'm a bit of a fan of multiple ships using the 'drone/scrambler' combination for this to get me back into silent running.

Pretty much it in a nutshell. Given the escalating cost of more speed, the fastest I have gotten a usable drone to go was 16, using a 15 dronerack battleship, and 6 darklight. Given that fighters and frigates typically have a speed of 14-15, they still will miss if the target immediately moves directly away, and is more than a few hexes distant to start with. The problem is compounded if there is a nearby grav-well that the target can skirt for cover.

Of all the ideas presented, I like the EMP effect lasting for 2 turns one best. If I am covering every inch of space in small radius, heavily armored beholders, all I need to do to kill a fighter is slow or stop it for 1 turn. Much easier to catch a fighter with a speed 3, area of effect weapon, than a speed 2 direct targeting weapon.

Veldez wrote:

the fastest I have gotten a usable drone to go was 16, using a 15 dronerack battleship, and 6 darklight. Given that fighters and frigates typically have a speed of 14-15, they still will miss if the target immediately moves directly away, and is more than a few hexes distant to start with. The problem is compounded if there is a nearby grav-well that the target can skirt for cover.

*coughs* would this be a bad point to mention that I've had periods where I regularly made 16-18 speed, "usable," drones with ships that had no darklight?
Seriously though, the suggestion of increased speed drones would make that 16-speed drone a 24 speed drone - and thus perfectly *capable* of catching anything and doing so with *some* starting distance (how much depends on the burn and ability of the targetted player/pilot, of course). Alternately, it would have freed up quite a few drone points.

Well, no one has said they hate the idea of spending mass to increase the drone base move rate. So I'll presume that it seems OK to people?

In particular, Mr Mappie.....you will suffer the most from this.
ie my retaliation salvo will catch your frigate.

I don't think the best solution is to make all drones 'faster'. You make a lot of the game to 'instant' that way. Given this, I'd rather that the speed boost was restricted to the 'power 1' drone idea.

Call it a specific name (point defense or some such), specific and known shot characteristics (base speed 'sufficient' to hit target, low armour, appropriate 'burn'), and an 'autofail' of its attack nano if its hits armour.

Large ships don't need that much 'power' to kill small craft after all. And each ship can 'target' every fighter visible on a turn with these (dependent on cost) so it could quite quickly gets the job done.

There you go, a fighter killer that shouldn't impact other game-play.

Mapmaker wrote:

I don't think the best solution is to make all drones 'faster'. You make a lot of the game to 'instant' that way. Given this, I'd rather that the speed boost was restricted to the 'power 1' drone idea.

You think combat would simply maintain distance and reap the reduction in time to hit?

Call it a specific name (point defense or some such), specific and known shot characteristics (base speed 'sufficient' to hit target, low armour, appropriate 'burn'), and an 'autofail' of its attack nano if its hits armour.

Mapmaker wrote:

Large ships don't need that much 'power' to kill small craft after all. And each ship can 'target' every fighter visible on a turn with these (dependent on cost) so it could quite quickly gets the job done. There you go, a fighter killer that shouldn't impact other game-play.

Rather than a "known value" I'd rather see the attack drones with 1 power have 3 movement- giving somewhat more variable construction.

GameAdmin wrote:

Well, no one has said they hate the idea of spending mass to increase the drone base move rate. So I'll presume that it seems OK to people?

It took me a bit to wring this out, but my concern with the "more mass gives more speed" is a question of what happens when someone gets the bright idea of adding 3 or more mass to increase speed; movement increases of 5 per set of points spent?
As much as I like scalability, I think this is a case where it might be inappropriate and we'd be better with either a flat 3 per, or 3 per only for power 1 drones.

OK:

Missile:
Power 1, move 3, targetting/armour/burn up to the firer.

If it hits armour it fizzles and has no effect.


Very simple, and good. Hurrah!